Commentary: Nobody writes tougher stuff than this LA Weekly scribe

Finke is a rarity at a time when many entertainment writers are either too awed, ill-informed or lazy to do serious reporting on Tinseltown. In fact, no writer relishes taking the rich and famous down a peg as much as this LA Weekly print columnist/Web journalist.

While journalists pride themselves on having a natural skepticism for figures of authority, Finke's prickly distrust for many of them practically borders on disrespect, if not outright disdain. For example, this is the unfettered Finke on:

-- Actor and director Warren Beatty (June 2, 2005): "That's why I wince every time Beatty pontificates from the sidelines of American politics, no matter if it's preening from the commencement podium of UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy, as he did May 21, or stammering on the telephone to the oh-so-gullible Los Angeles Times four days later." (Actually, her dis of the Times, one of her many former employers, should qualify as a two-cushion shot).

-- "The Apprentice" (April 1, 2004): "As for the show itself, there's no attempt to portray any joy in work for work's sake or even accomplishment's sake. Just the opposite. (Donald) Trump's wannabes labor to win the next perk -- a gander at Trump's apartment, a ride on Trump's helicopter, a stay in Trump's hotel suite..."

-- The Sundance Film Festival (Jan. 30, 2003): "If you accept the premise that the film business is the folly of the filthy rich, then the independent-film business must seem the folly of the stupidly rich."

The kill

"If there's an open wound, I'm going to pour salt in it," she told me over dinner in Santa Monica. "Nothing makes me happier than following a puff piece. The more people fawn, the more I go in for the kill."

Sometimes, though, in 20/20 hindsight, it could look like Finke misfired and ended up shooting herself in the foot. Consider how she skewered Arianna Huffington in May 2005: "This website venture is the sort of failure that is simply unsurvivable. Her blog is such a bomb that it's the movie equivalent of Gigli, Ishtar and Heaven's Gate rolled into one. In magazine terms, it's the disastrous clone of Tina Brown's Talk, JFK Jr.'s George or Maer Roshan's Radar."

When I gently pointed out that HuffingtonPost has gone on to become a hit, Finke was unrepentant. "Arianna failed when it came out," she clarified. "She changed the formula and it wound up becoming successful."

Insecure

Finke may be the least ego-driven person in southern California, where everyone's stock-in-trade pose is to play it cool, at all costs. "I do this for me! It's not because I want to get to a certain job or because I want to be friends with everyone," she said.

She insists that she's "a morass of insecurity" and said the prospect of our interview made her "feel like I'm going to my execution."

It's fair to say that Finke comes by her insecurity honestly. Listening to her recite her story of a sheltered childhood, life at Wellesley, a marriage that ended in divorce, travels around the world and many stops at major media shops, made me feel a little like Wallace Shawn in "My Dinner with Andre." Shawn played the role of a disbelieving dinner companion who listens to Andre Gregory's stranger-than-fiction tales.

"I was a debutante for God's sake!" she winced, remembering her privileged Manhattan upbringing.

Finke doesn't go easy on anyone, even herself. When I asked who might have played her in a movie, she quipped. "Who was that actress who went to a mental institution -- Frances?" she laughed, referring to Frances Farmer.

She also says with a laugh that LA Weekly is "the official paper of valets. We have massage ads!"

Jesse Oxfeld, a Gawker co-editor, summed up Finke's appeal: "I think what makes Nikki so compelling is that she's clearly at least a bit crazy -- and you can never quite figure out if it's good crazy or bad crazy. She's a great reporter and a fun writer, and God knows I wouldn't want to be on her bad side."

Disapproving

Beneath Finke's bluster and quips, she frets about the Hollywood media. "Too many journalists believe what the CEOs tell them," she frowned.

Finke bragged: "I was the first to get in the face of (Michael) Ovitz...(Michael) Eisner...(Barry) Diller." She added: "I don't go after somebody who doesn't deserve it."

"Here's what makes me weird," she said. "I care about what happens in the boardroom, not the celebrities. I don't fancy myself as a movie critic. My taste in movies is abysmal."

Love or hate Finke's style, say this about her: She'll never be accused of acting star-struck When I asked what would be the first question she'd want to ask, say, Tom Cruise, she screwed up her face and said: "I wouldn't want to be in the same room as Tom Cruise!"

She told me: "I write mean -- end of story. I'm unapologetic about it - end of story. I watch out for the shareholders -- end of story."

Well, it's not quite the end, of course.

Finke can be the soft touch she insists she is when she isn't at work. "I always had a crush on Cary Grant," she sighed. "I don't care if he was 842 years old. I would've married him."

Naturally, Finke knew all about the place. She blurted out: "I want to be buried there! It s like a really nice place, and I'd be buried with Hollywood history. "I keep saying I have to remember to book my plot!" she said excitedly. "On my tombstone, it could say: 'She told the truth about Hollywood.'"

I couldn't ask for a better quotation to conclude this column.

So, now I can write it.

End of story.

MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: What would you rather read about - the gossip or business of Hollywood?

WEDNESDAY PET PEEVE: I know, I know. When it comes to selling magazines, sex sells. Still, did Newsweek
WPO
HAVE TO put movie star Brad Pitt, fresh from witnessing the birth of his child with actress Angelina Jolie, front and center on the cover of its new "Giving Back Awards" issue? Call me naïve (again), but I suspect that newsweekly could've featured someone every bit as deserving as the world's most famous Mr. Mom.

A READER RESPONDS to my column about business columnists Joe Nocera of the New York Times and Allan Sloan of Newsweek: "Nothing modest about these guys, is there? How about just sticking to the facts and leave the NYT lib bias out of it. I might start reading (the) paper again." Ralph Johnson

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